The Department of Health and Social Care's (DHSC) legal team refused this week to say what the Government had actually apologised for when it admitted in 2018 that the contaminated blood scandal had involved "things happened that should not have happened".
In closing submissions at the ongoing Infected Blood Inquiry, having been asked by lawyers for hundreds of those infected and affected by the scandal to answer what the Government believed it was apologising for more than four years ago, Eleanor Grey KC, on behalf of the DHSC repeated: "We don't have a position to offer you."
In September 2018, when the Inquiry opened, Ms Grey said the Government was "unreservedly sorry" about what had happened. But on Tuesday Steven Snowden KC - speaking as representation for a number of campaign groups and hundreds of those who had been infected and affected - said the DHSC should detail what it believed had gone wrong.
He told Inquiry chair Sir Brian Langstaff on Tuesday: "What things? What is the 'it'? You can search their submissions, as, sir, I know you will have done, and we found no significant concession or acceptance or identification of what went wrong.
"What are the things that should not have happened?"
Mr Snowden also asked the Government to lay out its position on specific issues, such as when did the DHSC know that the illness which became known as hepatitis C had long-term and lethal consequences. He said this was, in effect, a "hopeless" apology.
Giving her own closing submissions on behalf of DHSC, Ms Grey said the Government would not be doing so - but that this did not reflect a lack of candour.
The ongoing Infected Blood Inquiry - set to conclude this year - is currently hearing closing submissions from parties concerned in the tragedy. Often called the "biggest treatment disaster in NHS history", thousands of NHS patients - including many haemophiliacs - were given tainted blood products or blood transfusions by NHS doctors which contained viruses like HIV and hepatitis C. Thousands have died - including those in Newcastle such as Peter Longstaff, whose wife Carol Grayson has been fighting for justice for decades.
Giving the DHSC closing submission, Ms Grey said the Inquiry had been "important and salutary in its work" and paid tribute to those who had given evidence. She said: "The inquiry has given a powerful voice to the patients who are harmed by those treatments and to their families and loved ones.
"We have acknowledged in our written submissions filed on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care, that we as the DHSC cannot do justice to the powerful accounts that the inquiry has heard over the four years during which it's gathered evidence.
"We wish to start again by recognising this suffering and loss. We know that the evidence heard includes harrowing accounts of the physical suffering and psychological injuries suffered by those harmed by infected blood products and their families and carers, and now the submissions filed on behalf of the infected and affected have spoken of the challenges in securing necessary treatment and counselling or other forms of support."
However, she said: "The current department, which as I explained, we represent, together with the agencies that I listed at the beginning of these comments, does not have and has not had throughout this inquiry, a case to put or a set of views to press on the inquiry." She added that the DHSC "has not wished to pre-empt [the inquiry] process by offering opinions now."
The senior Government lawyer added there was "not one model of how to participate in or how to respond to an inquiry" adding: "As a result, I'm not going to offer answers to the six or so questions he challenged me to respond to in the submissions that you heard yesterday." Ms Grey said the implications of this could have involved "stoking disappointment, distrust and confrontation".
She was then asked by former High Court judge Sir Brian as to what had been meant in 2018. He said: "It does strike me that when the inquiry opened you did on behalf of the department appear, at least to me, and no doubt to others to take a position and that was that wrong had be done.
"It would help me, without in any sense prejudging any of the other findings I might make, to understand what wrong the department had in mind when you said that."
However, Ms Grey answered: "We don't have a position to offer to you on what that might be."
The Inquiry continues and will hear a range of closing submissions in the coming weeks. It is expected to conclude and Sir Brian will produce a report later in 2023.
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